Key Nonprofit Highlights
Coburn Place offers compassionate support and safe housing choices to survivors of domestic violence and their children in Indianapolis, Indiana. They partnered with Bloomerang’s Giving Platform to replace their outdated donor database and improve donor relationships. By leveraging Bloomerang’s intuitive, cloud-based tools, they enhanced donor stewardship, increased first-time donors by 57%, and achieved a 59% donor retention rate.
Features like real-time interaction tracking, customizable reporting and analytics, and donor segmentation have streamlined fundraising, improved donor communication, and boosted operational efficiency.
Challenge
Outgrowing an outdated, single-user, donor database
Before partnering with Bloomerang’s Giving Platform, Coburn Place was looking for a cloud-based, user-friendly, and intuitive donor management system to replace their dinosaur database and improve their donor relationships. “First and foremost, we wanted a cloud-based system,” said Julie Henson, Vice President of Development. “Our prior database was a dinosaur, and only one user could be in it at one time, making it nearly unusable. We were also wanting something interactive, user-friendly, flexible and customizable, and that would help us enhance donor relations. Bloomerang has definitely been all that and more.”
Solution
Transforming fundraising with intuitive donor management tools
Bloomerang’s Giving Platform stood out to Coburn Place as the most intuitive cloud-based solution for their needs, along with the advantage of also being based in Indianapolis. “Since using it, I have fallen in love with timelines and the ability to track so much of what we do with donors in real time,” explained Henson. “It’s such a user-friendly site with a robust and customizable back end, plus timelines, interactions, and notes that are life-changing. I also have to shout out the ‘first-time donor calls’ feature which is so helpful as a gift officer!”
Bloomerang Fundraising has significantly improved the way Coburn Place accepts and solicits donations by making the process more personal and dynamic for their team and donors alike. “Bloomerang Fundraising, in particular, stands out as one of the most useful and impact additions to our fundraising yet,” Henson shared. “The way it makes fundraising more personal and dynamic for the donor, plus easier and more efficient for back-end users, has transformed so many of our processes.”
Since implementing Bloomerang, Coburn Place has alleviated several fundraising pain points in regards to improved productivity and operational efficiency. “Most importantly, with Bloomerang, we all have access to our information. Our dinosaur old system only let one person in at a time,” said Henson. “Being in an interactive database together has made fundraising efforts more cohesive and donors more central to our mission.”
In addition to its robust features and reliability as a database, Henson is happy to tout Bloomerang’s friendly and knowledgeable customer support team as another reason to recommend it as a top donor management system for women’s empowerment organizations like theirs. “I also love the amazing customer support so much,” said Henson. “It’s incredible how they have helped me learn so much about report building. Literally, the best continued education webinars and content about enhancing donor engagement.”
Results
Bloomerang’s Giving Platform increases new donors by 57%
For organizations like Coburn Place, Bloomerang’s Giving Platform has become an essential tool in enhancing donor engagement and optimizing fundraising. The Coburn team is now better able to understand their donors and deepen their impact. “Interaction tracking has really helped us see what we’re good at and make sure that we’re engaging and learning about our donors. It also helps us make donors feel connected to the mission and helps us find folks who have fallen through the cracks, which definitely increases donor retention,” said Henson. “And Bloomerang’s reporting has helped us refine data so that we could actually know our donor retention accurately for the first time.” Coburn Place’s donor retention rate is currently an impressive 59%.
Since adding Bloomerang Fundraising, they’ve also increased first-time donors by 57%. “We have gotten more first-time donors, and we’ve been able to have more personalized and successful peer-to-peer fundraisers,” said Henson. “All the while, we’re saving time on the back end, making sure donor gifts are received, properly coded, and acknowledged swiftly.” Along with the improved donor acknowledgements, the Coburn Place team has also observed a growth in the quality of their constituent communications, thanks to Bloomerang’s ability to segment donors.
“Our constituent communication has definitely improved,” said Henson. “We can record notes and see who donors are and their histories with the organization. It’s led to better segmentation and personalization of the donor experience.” Bloomerang is proud to partner with Coburn Place to empower donor stewardship and maximize impact by providing survivors with the resources they need to rebuild their lives.
